


Abend

by HarveyWallbanger



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Hell, It's ninety percent theology ten percent dry humping, M/M, Suicide mention, the afterlife
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-14 08:03:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16909221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarveyWallbanger/pseuds/HarveyWallbanger
Summary: There's hell, and there's Purgatory, and then there are your twenties.





	Abend

**Author's Note:**

> This is the long-awaited- by me, anyway- follow-up to "Fall-through".  
> I am not involved in the production of Sleepy Hollow, and this school is not involved in the production of Sleepy Hollow. No one pays me to do this. This story and the work it's based on are fiction. Do not try any of this at home. Thank you, and good night.

And to think- people were worried about the future.  
Ha. The future.  
Malcolm’s been to the future. He knows exactly what happens. It’s all… okay. Maybe more okay for some people than others- but he sold his soul, and he was fine. The worst had happened, and he’d lived. He’d lived well. What was a soul supposed to be worth? His was obviously a fine specimen. It had given excellent value. Now, everyday, Malcolm watches people fret about the future. They need their coffee now- five minutes ago- yesterday- or they’re going to be late to work, and they’re going to be fired, and they’ll never save enough money to retire, and then, they’ll just die. They need this book for a class. When he tells them that he’s not allowed to ring up non-café transactions on the café register, he receives looks of blank animal hatred. They need this book. If they fail this class, they’ll flunk out of college, and they won’t get a good job, and then… then, they’ll just die. They’ll just die. They’ll die if they don’t have this muffin heated up. They’ll die if they don’t get a receipt. Somewhere in the future, we’re all dead, anyway, so what’s the point of worrying about it? He wants to tell them that they’re all wrong, about everything. He wants to grab their faces and shout into them.  
It’s not the future you need to worry about!  
It’s the present!  
It’s now!  
It’s boredom, and cramps in your hands and your neck and your back. It’s feeling too old for your twenty-five year old body, which only looks young. It’s finding that you’re still scared of teenagers. It’s the wet-wool smell of scalded milk, and counters that are always sticky, no matter how much you scrub at them. It’s your manager standing too close and hearing what you say, sotto voce about the customers. It’s being afraid when you had forgotten what it is to have to be afraid. It’s sitting in a basic computer science class, hearing the instructor’s words clearly, but having a head made of jelly, off of which the words slip. It’s reading the same sentence five times, thinking that you finally understand what it says, thinking that you just had to work- that you just had to try harder- that hell isn’t totally barren- that even infernal ice can melt- and beginning the next, only to realize that you have no idea what you’ve been reading. What’s it about? Where are you? You start laughing to yourself, miserably, wretchedly, and your classmate, a forty-year-old housewife named ‘Carole, with an e’, gently pats your wrist, and asks you if you’re all right. It’s quietly dropping out of school by just failing to show up too many times, burying yourself in forgiving obscurity, finally happy to not have been memorable, to not have made an impression, to not have collected interest or admiration or affection.  
Malcolm’s relieved, he finds, when he wakes up knowing that he’s doomed his scholastic career. He’s happy.  
This is what there is to fear.  
Happiness.  
Happiness is what keeps a person from doing something that matters. If Malcolm were a little less relieved, a little less contented, a little less happy, lying in bed early in the morning, allowing himself to enjoy the softness and warmth of the sheets, he could do something. He could… find a warlock or someone to undo this. He could call up the Devil, himself, and make a new deal. Malcolm’s soul must still be good for something. He could at least get back his God-given abilities.  
“God-given,” Malcolm moans quietly into the pillow, laughs bitterly.  
“And the Lord taketh away,” Jobe says against the back of Malcolm’s neck.  
“Oh, no,” Malcolm says, and turns to face Jobe, “This was your boss.”  
“But did God not make you in His image? And ultimately, wasn’t it your God-given,” a nasty twist of his mouth, “free will that allowed you to get yourself into this mess?”  
“I need to speak to him,” Malcolm says, sounding to himself for the first time like he did when he was really twenty five. He clears his throat. “I need to speak to your boss. I need to make a new deal.”  
“And what do you think you have to trade?” Jobe turns him onto his back. Malcolm lets himself be overtaken. “While you have a certain persuasive influence over me, haven’t you had enough rejection in life to know that most are immune to your charms?”  
“My soul,” Malcolm says, looking away. He makes himself look into Jobe’s eyes. “My soul.”  
“We have that.”  
“Then why aren’t I in hell?”  
“Why this is hell,” Jobe says, smiling sweetly, “nor are you out of it.”  
“Say what you want about southern California, but this is not hell. You just sent me back in time, fucked with my head. But this isn’t hell,” Malcolm laughs.  
Is that pity? “It’s lamentable that your capacity for abstract thought is as limited as its applications. This is hell, Malcolm. It’s your hell, made just for you.”  
“That’s… stupid.”  
“I’ll try not to be offended.”  
“But it’s… ridiculous. I have a job. I go to school. I went to school. My mother’s alive.”  
“And wouldn’t you trade it all to be back where you were? Wouldn’t you gladly sacrifice your mother’s life a second time to be who you were? Aren’t you all the more miserable for having seen what you could accomplish, knowing that it’s now utterly impossible? You lost everything. Everything.”  
Malcolm blinks hard. His throat hurts. For a moment, he doesn’t even trust himself to breathe. Finally, he says, “So, what do I do?”  
Jobe’s weight is crushing. His heat is oppressive. His grip is a vice. His gaze is flaying, glacial. From beneath half-mast lids, horrifyingly beautiful, he regards Malcolm. He says: “I would suggest that you lie back, and enjoy it.”  
The point, though, is that he can’t. At first, Malcolm pretends to not understand. If he doesn’t understand, then he has at least the illusion of being able to change his lot. That’s the root of the human condition, isn’t it? People pretend that they can avert the inevitable. Everything they do is in the spirit that it’ll somehow change the fact that they’re going to one day die. If you didn’t live that way, you’d never do anything.  
“So I’m dead?” he asks Jobe.  
“Oh, yes.”  
“Why do I feel like I’m alive, then? I eat, I sleep, I go to the bathroom.”  
“This isn’t a dream or a fantasy, Malcolm. This is real. Why would you doubt your own senses?”  
“It’s not… bad, though. No one’s tormenting me.”  
“Would you like me to?”  
“What I mean is that,” he can’t look at Jobe- why can’t he look?- “I like some of it.”  
“Is it a substitute for what you lost?”  
He doesn’t hesitate. “No.”  
“But you enjoy it.”  
“Yes.”  
“Does it provide you with some solace?”  
“No.”  
“Did you believe that I loved you, before?”  
Malcolm closes his eyes. “I don’t know. Yes.”  
“Do you believe that I love you, still?”  
“No,” he laughs, “How could you? I have half a brain. If that. You’re just doing this to fuck with me.”  
“There, then, is your answer,” Jobe says, and kisses him.  
It’s not love. It’s not solace. It’s not even nice, in any conventional sense. It hurts. It hurts him someplace he can’t identify. It could even be his heart. It might be the place where his soul once lodged. He should shrink from it. He should push Jobe away. He knows, somehow, that if he did, Jobe would go.  
He knows that he’d feel better about himself if he sent Jobe away. His head would suddenly be both lighter and more solid. His thoughts would clear and separate, shining. From this morass, he’d pull himself free; a piece at a time, if he had to, if it took him a thousand years. He’d find the Devil. He’d strike a new deal. He’d give up anything, sell anything or anyone. The Devil could have his mother. The Devil could have Jobe. He could have Malcolm, himself, any way he wanted, for eternity- just take Malcolm back. Take Malcolm back to himself. Let him fail or succeed, live or die, as himself. This isn’t who Malcolm really is. Once, when he was himself, Jobe loved him, but he never loved Jobe. How could you love a servant? If Jobe looks on him with contempt, now, it’s nothing to what Malcolm once felt for him. It meant nothing, and it means nothing. This is less than nothing. So, he’ll send Jobe away. Malcolm will return to himself.  
He doesn’t move. Jobe holds him, and he clings to Jobe.  
“And now you know,” Jobe says, gently but not happily, “why no one ever leaves hell.”  
Jobe kisses him again. It’s sweet the way that decay is sweet. It’s that rich, tangy, queer parody of the scent of a ripe apple. Maybe that’s what knowledge is ultimately all about: decay. True knowledge is the awareness that everything will end. Except this, of course. Somehow, hell doesn’t have to follow the rules. Malcolm could kill himself, and he’d just end up here again.  
“Oh, there are much more pleasant ways to die,” Jobe says against his ear, kisses his cheek, his neck.  
One thought separates, though, shines. Malcolm makes himself look into Jobe’s eyes. “Why are you doing this?”  
“Call me a hopeless romantic, but I like a slow build-up.”  
“You know that isn’t what I mean. I know why I’m here… but why are you here?”  
“You want to know what a demon is doing in hell.”  
“I want to know why you’re here, with me, in this hell, in my hell. What are you, my guidance counselor? You don’t work for me anymore.”  
For a moment- No. Jobe doesn’t feel fear.  
“The assignment didn’t end just because your circumstances changed. You were my responsibility in life, and you’re my responsibility in death.”  
“So, this,” he moves against Jobe to illustrate, “is all in a day’s work?”  
“You know your Marlowe,” Jobe says coolly, “Tell me: am I in hell?”  
“Well, yeah. You’re in hell. I don’t see you suffering, though.”  
Jobe gets off of him, lies down next to him. Jobe looks at the ceiling. “Imagine,” he says in the soft voice that Malcolm hasn’t heard since he was alive, hadn’t even remembered until now, hadn’t thought to miss, “that you were once totally without concern. You had one emotion: fulfillment, the satisfaction of loving and being loved. It was constant. It filled you completely, and you were whole, eternal. Then, one day, you had reason to doubt. To doubt that you were loved, to doubt what you meant to the one you loved. Imagine that, suddenly, you knew what it was to be temporary, replaceable. Imagine, then, being commanded to love that which spelled your end, that which diminished you, stole away your love. Imagine knowing that you were perfect, and being thrown over for trash, for animated offal that had barely more sense than a beast.”  
“This would be humanity, I take it.”  
“Very perceptive. Naturally, you would rebel. Your dignity, the memory of the love you once felt, would demand it. These were the only two things left for you, and you clung to them, even as you were thrown away once and for all, condemned to total separation from your love. Imagine that you went about your business, for innumerable days, tormenting those that had stolen from you, which brought some comfort, however shallow, and ultimately pointless. Imagine then, that the most unlikely thing happened: somehow, you don’t know how, your disgust receded, and you found yourself feeling affection for one of them. It was a hideous parody of divine love, obscene, a pantomime. Yet, you were unable to deny it. How do you think such an offense would be punished?”  
Malcolm says the first thing that comes to mind, which is: “That’s so stupid.” He laughs, because it feels good to think that it might hurt Jobe. “You fuck up once, and you have to suffer, now, too? And your punishment is, what, being with the person you supposedly care about- this would be me, I guess. Pardon me for stating the obvious, but if you cared so much about me, you’d get me out of here.”  
“It’s not that simple.”  
“No,” Malcolm says bitterly, “nothing ever is. So, you love me, and the punishment for loving me is having to sleep in my bed and fuck me and go drinking with me after work and tell my mother that you’re a friend of mine from college?”  
Jobe sighs. “Try to remember what I said, though I know it must be difficult for you. Try, with your limited means, to understand.”  
Malcolm sighs. “Okay, humans are gross, you fall in love with a human, so you now have to suffer by spending all of your time with a human. I guess it makes sense. It’s still stupid, but it’s not illogical.”  
“It’s because of you that I’m in hell.”  
“What- me, personally?”  
“Humanity. I defied my creator, out of jealousy and pride, and was cast down.”  
“Okay, yeah. I can see how you might harbor a resentment toward us. Not to beat a dead horse, but if you love me so much, why don’t you get me out of here?”  
“It’s not in my nature to do so.”  
Malcolm laughs, “What?”  
“We’re all creatures of our nature.”  
“That’s absurd,” he says, just to say a word other than ‘stupid’.  
“How absurd is it, when you’ve admitted that you would sell your own mother to get back what was taken from you? Don’t lecture me about being inflexible.”  
“That’s different,” Malcolm says, “I’m not claiming to love you. I’m not keeping you here.”  
“Fine. Send me away.”  
“I can’t send you away. You don’t work for me anymore, remember?”  
“You seemed happy enough to consider it; you must think it possible. Send me away. Watch me leave.”  
“What do I get if I do?”  
“I don’t know, Malcolm. You seemed to think that it was the key to your freedom. I distract you, don’t I? I make you happy.”  
“You are a distraction. Maybe if I got rid of you, I’d be able to think clearly.”  
“Then free yourself.” Where did that knife come from? A chill spreads through Malcolm before he realizes how ridiculous that is. He’s already dead. That’s the point! “Cut my throat, if you’d like,” Jobe says, “Make the separation final.”  
“It wouldn’t kill you,” Malcolm says halfheartedly. He doesn’t even want to look at the knife. He’s never liked them.  
“It would cause me pain. Isn’t that what you want to do?”  
“What would I do about the body?”  
“I wouldn’t trouble you with a thing like that. I’d simply vanish. You’d never see me again.”  
“It’s a trick.”  
“I’ve never lied to you.”  
It’s a shock to realize that Jobe is right. “No, you haven’t. You were always honest,” Malcolm says absently, trying to both look at the knife and not look at it, “You always did as you were told. You thought of me, I think; you tried to help me in ways beyond what I asked of you.”  
“I did.”  
“Did you really love me?”  
“You’ve answered that question, yourself.”  
“Do you still love me?”  
“You know the answer to that question, too.” But Jobe says it sadly, Malcolm thinks. That makes it worse.  
“Well, fix me, then!” Malcolm snaps. For the first time in a long time, he feels anger the way he used to, when he was alive. It’s anger with meaning, because it has an answer. It’s the anger that gets things done.  
Maybe it reminds Jobe of the time before the apple. The time before the apple ripened, rotted. Maybe that’s what Jobe is thinking of. He speaks! “Maybe I like you the way you are.”  
That’s it. Where is the knife? Suddenly, Malcolm can’t find it. He flings back the sheets, but only finds Jobe. Who draws him into his arms and kisses him, holds Malcolm fast until he stops trying to get away. Being touched by Jobe feels like letting a match burn down between your fingers. Even before the flame touches you, you feel it; you’re aware of it in a way that goes beyond your tactile sense. You can feel it wanting to get to you. For a moment, before it does, the heat is merely warmth, and it doesn’t hurt. The heat gets down under Malcolm’s skin. He imagines that he can feel his blood actually boiling, fizzing like champagne; hissing and spitting. Before it’s reduced to paste, and then vapor, then to nothing. He feels his skin blister; cries out, his voice cracking. The blisters burst, fluid running down his skin. The wounds scar, tight and itching, and then the scars fade. It happens so quickly that pain ceases to register as pain. It’s bright and intense, and colder than it is hot. It shudders through him, leaving a trail of sickly endorphins. He bites Jobe’s shoulder. Jobe lets him do it, laughs. Jobe’s body looks human, so his blood looks human; tastes like human blood. Malcolm’s seen his real form. Sees it, sometimes, still, at the same time as Jobe’s human body. They both exist at once; neither entirely true nor entirely a lie.  
“Where’s the knife?” Malcolm asks, feeling drunk.  
“What would you do with it if you had it in your hand?”  
“I’d cut your throat.”  
Smiling, Jobe caresses his face. “You’re the same man you always were.”  
“Fix me,” Malcolm says.  
“No,” Jobe says, and kisses him.  
“Fix me,” Malcolm whispers, looking into Jobe’s eyes, caring neither how he sounds nor how he looks.  
Jobe eases him back, presses down on him. “No.”  
“Fix me,” he says again. They’re just some dumb words that don’t mean anything, but it feels necessary, somehow, to speak. As though this is the only way to hold onto himself. But, of course, he can’t, because Jobe is kissing him, and he doesn’t want it to stop. He spreads his legs, wraps himself around Jobe, feels Jobe sigh out a breath as Jobe moves against him. For a moment, Malcolm feels panic; something important is slipping away from him. He’s so stupid; he’s letting this happen again. He’s ashamed of himself.  
That goes quickly. It goes quickly because it feels good to let it go. Hell is every little thing that keeps you from doing what you know you have to do. Hell could never be pain. It could only be pleasure.  
“I guess we’re both damned,” Malcolm says. It shouldn’t feel like a revelation. Yet it does. To Malcolm’s staggering, water-logged brain, that’s exactly what it is.  
But Jobe looks down at him. Sweetly. He’s relieved, Malcolm realizes. It must be true if even Malcolm can see it. And now, to Malcolm’s relief, Jobe caresses his face, says, “Yes. Damn us both.”  
Tomorrow. He’ll do what he has to do tomorrow.  
Hell is nothing but tomorrow.  
Tomorrow, you’ll get up.  
Do this all again.


End file.
